El Corte de Madera Creek Open Space Preserve — Attraction in Atherton

Extensive network of fire road and trails. This place is great for hiking and mountain biking. The sand stone formation area is about 30 min hike from the middle and north parking lots. It can be access from just walking on fire roads too. So it's a great place for family, even with kids.

Mountain biking is nice. The park is so big that it's a huge challenging to try going through the whole park. There are easy fire roads, blue trails and there are a few narrow and gnarly black trails.

One problem with this park is that the whole park is on one side of the mountain. So mostly you would walk lower, then have to climb back up. For mountain biking, it's often not possible to travel only on trails. Often half of your trip will be on fire road. careful planning is needed so you don't end up biking down on fire road. There are section of fire roads that are super steep, making it impossible to bike up.

All in all, great place to...

Finally, we picked a weekend without raining to check out the Redwood forest. The 2023 rain season has not been kind to the west coast with down trees and broken roads or trails. The main parking lot was half full compared to the usual car sharks in the typical weekend day. The new sign of no electric bicycle was erected, but there were still those trying their luck. Perhaps it could've been a better luck for cyclists in general with frequent down trees across the trails. Soaked mixed mud and leaves made sure feet do not sink in. It was hikeable, but the ground felt over saturated. It's great to see the trees sprouting and growing well. New seedlings are overshadowing the trail sides dotted with mushrooms as ground cover. Overall scenery was average and best without much of the...

This place is a mountain bikers' favorite. For experienced riders, this is easily one of the top five mountain biking destinations anywhere in the Bay Area. It's rare but I do see the occasional hiker on these trails as well. For bikers, there is singletrack for a wide range of skill levels. The technical difficulty of the singletrack trails range around the higher side of average. One piece of quick advice for any first-time mountain biker to ride at El Corte de Madera Creek: if you find yourself descending a fire road for more than a few seconds here, you've probably made a bad route choice. At Skeggs Point (the commonly used name for this place among mountain bikers), fire roads are mainly meant for climbing and the singletrack mainly...